The Emperor Masters' Challenge 2 (on Warlords)

pigswill said:
Quick point: it might be worth researching polytheism rather than meditation coz AI seem more reluctant to trade poly (probably because of parthenon)

True, but Meditation is cheaper so it's a faster route to the Oracle.

Maybe we can research Fishing before Mining because there's a corn tile to farm so the worker doesn't need to chop till later. This idea is becoming appealing to me. Like Dr Elmer Jiggle said, it could pay off by shortening the turns needed to research the religious techs. I guess I should take a look at the game before deciding.
 
aelf,i have a question.why do you build worrior first instead of worker? i remember last challenge,worker first
 
ahandac said:
aelf,i have a question.why do you build worrior first instead of worker? i remember last challenge,worker first

I don't use a calculator to play, but I figured the returns for getting up to size 2 asap outweighs the returns from getting the worker earlier. You get more important exploration done with 2 warriors when the barb archers haven't started appearing, especially if one might die to animals, and you can work on tiles that will shorten the worker production time and speed up research.
 
Round 2: 3430BC - 2290BC

Eventful round for such a young game.

First, I decided to get Fishing first. Noting how a difference of 1 commerce could shave a turn off AH, I decided the 9 turns to get Fishing might be worth the turns the lakes' 2G each might shave off our research for a long time.

Anyway, our second warrior met another neighbour:



If it isn't Sister Isabelle. :culture: The hills are alive... :culture: Nevermind. :p

The same warrior came up to her borders:



She isn't very far. Good news for us, bad news for her ;) Notice that Buddhism was founded. Guess who founded it?

Once Fishing was researched, I went to the city screen and fiddled with the tiles:



Indeed, working the lake and the silk forest allowed us to research Mining in 9 turns instead of 11. And, in this case, without increasing the worker's build time too! Looking good.

Meanwhile, our other exploring warrior also earned Woodsman I:



I'm glad we built a warrior before the worker. They can do a lot of exploring in different directions before dying.

The worker was soon complete.



I decided to grow the city while continuing the faster research. Not working the silk forest didn't increase the number of turns left for Mining. The worker went to farm the corn first. Once that was done,



Our city would grow in no time. Once that was achieved, it would be able to build the next warrior quickly. This warrior is to escort the settler later. Doing it as I planned,



I fortified the completed warrior in Thebes. We have enough explorers. I didn't want to risk this one dying.

By the way, once our worker had finished with the farm, I asked him to build a road on the same tile. I know we should get the pasture up next, but the worker would waste 2 turns just getting there. I thought building a road there would benefit us in the longer run since the city would act like a roaded tile once the road was up, saving us a turn now and a turn or two later (and we will have to road the corn eventually).

Thebes went on to start on a settler, who will settle the pigs/silk/sugar site to the west:



The worker went to pasture the horses next:



As the screenshot shows, the pasture enabled us to significantly increase our production as we could work the pasture and the silk forest, which gave us 6H on top of 2F2G like the lake. There was no significant sacrifice in research, but with the highest commerce around, the lake(s) will probably feature in our tile management again later.

Anyway, the warrior exploring towards NW soon ran into Inca territory:



Do you see what I saw? The perfect opportunity to steal a worker from Huayna. With a warrior that would get +70% defense from the forest too :mischief:

[to be continued in the next post]
 
Again, thanks for the micro report!!

have you asked isabella her opinion of her neighbor? would be good info.

since you are so close to hooking up your horses, I would go ahead and take the worker. it may start a long lasting war but after the settler and before the oracle you have time to crank out proably 4+ chariots. useful for dealing with the soon to be incoming barbs.. and for dealing with mr cupac if he doesnt want to just accept the loss and declare peace. but don't forget about the possibility of an early obelisk!!! ;)

NaZ
 
This thread is interesting to read. But I am a bit puzzled why this CS slingshot is so much emphasized. Even BEFORE starting the game the CS slingshot was the goal to go to, but why? I mean, your starting location shows marble. Ramesses is industrial. So marble wonders are the way to go. And religions, too, as Ramesses is spiritual. So with such conditions, I would give Hinduism a try researching it immediately. You have to research this, too, when you want to get the Oracle. And it is on the way to Monotheism. And you want to get masonry anyway to hook up the marble.

My research path would have been:
Mystiscism -> Polytheism -> Masonry -> Monotheism -> Priesthood -> Writing

Use the Oracle to found Christianity (Sistine Chapel!) and with 3 religions and a lot of marble wonders a cultural victory is a real possibility.

Founding 2 other cities (one on the river; the other on the coast) should do.

In the case Huayna Capac founds Buddism it is an option not to chose a state religion. This way you won't spoil diplomatic relations and you have the cultural benefit of all your religions in stead of just one.
 
[continued from the previous post]

So did we do it? It was too tempting :satan:



Now were we going to delete the worker, since in Warlords you can't move it the turn you captured it? I saw that Cuzco only had an archer and a Quechua, so I gambled on my Woodsman I warrior winning (at worst) the unpromoted archer. I kept the worker. I thought it was quite unlikely the AI would let its only archer available leave its capital anyway.

My gamble worked :D



Huayna quickly brought another archer to reinforce his capital (in the face of a lone warrior :crazyeye:). I decided to be a bastard to him and fortified the warrior there. If he was going to attack it, he couldn't use the new archer to attack on the next turn at the very least, as he would be coming up against 90% tile defense with the river there. I ran the worker away, moving tile by tile, hoping not to encounter any barbarians.

Several turns passed, and Huayna still hadn't dared move against our warrior. I don't know if this still cripples the AI in Warlords, but I think it's a good bet so far. However, I decided the warrior was probably better off surveying Inca lands now (before he dies), so he moved away safely. Our new worker, meanwhile, somehow made it to our land.

Once BW was researched, I stopped. Now we have two workers and a weakened Huayna :goodjob: Looks like we probably will get the Oracle (two workers to chop and no Huayna to compete), unless some other Industrious person elsewhere is crazy about it too.



Our settler is 3 turns from completion. One worker is getting ready to chop/pre-chop on the NE hill. I think we should build WC next for protection. Or we could chop a barracks. What do you think?

Research-wise, I think it's clear that we should go head straight for Priesthood through Meditation (cheaper than Polytheism). Our workers, meanwhile, will pre-chop for the Oracle. Thebes can build a barracks and some WCs while waiting for Priesthood.

This is the map of the known world:



Isabella has settled a city in the SW to claim sugar, silk, spice and gems (good target for later). I guess we have to shift our planned city up a little. I've drawn a dotmap of where if could be:



It claims pigs, corn, sugar and a floodplain. Not too bad, I think.

Any thoughts or opinions regarding the game?


EDIT: Added world map, dotmap and save.
 

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Andraeianus I said:
This thread is interesting to read. But I am a bit puzzled why this CS slingshot is so much emphasized. Even BEFORE starting the game the CS slingshot was the goal to go to, but why? I mean, your starting location shows marble. Ramesses is industrial. So marble wonders are the way to go. And religions, too, as Ramesses is spiritual. So with such conditions, I would give Hinduism a try researching it immediately. You have to research this, too, when you want to get the Oracle. And it is on the way to Monotheism. And you want to get masonry anyway to hook up the marble.

My research path would have been:
Mystiscism -> Polytheism -> Masonry -> Monotheism -> Priesthood -> Writing

Use the Oracle to found Christianity (Sistine Chapel!) and with 3 religions and a lot of marble wonders a cultural victory is a real possibility.

Founding 2 other cities (one on the river; the other on the coast) should do.

In the case Huayna Capac founds Buddism it is an option not to chose a state religion. This way you won't spoil diplomatic relations and you have the cultural benefit of all your religions in stead of just one.
Besides Bureaucracy, because it's a path to Paper for the University of Sankore and Divine Right for the Spiral Minaret, which is a primary theme/goal.

But you're right to focus on exploiting the actual situation. Maybe there's an alternative route to Sankore+Spiral that would work better here.

Edit: Or even an alternative route to victory, but arguably abandoning Sankore+Spiral takes the fun out of it.
 
Andraeianus I said:
This thread is interesting to read. But I am a bit puzzled why this CS slingshot is so much emphasized. Even BEFORE starting the game the CS slingshot was the goal to go to, but why? I mean, your starting location shows marble. Ramesses is industrial. So marble wonders are the way to go. And religions, too, as Ramesses is spiritual. So with such conditions, I would give Hinduism a try researching it immediately. You have to research this, too, when you want to get the Oracle. And it is on the way to Monotheism. And you want to get masonry anyway to hook up the marble.

My research path would have been:
Mystiscism -> Polytheism -> Masonry -> Monotheism -> Priesthood -> Writing

Use the Oracle to found Christianity (Sistine Chapel!) and with 3 religions and a lot of marble wonders a cultural victory is a real possibility.

Remember, this game revolves around the Sankore and Spiral Minaret combo. The challenge is build them and gain their maximum benefits while staying competitive with the rest of the world. Winning method is unspecified, but if we are really successful, winning shouldn't be too hard.

CS slingshot gets us Paper early, which is needed for Sankore. Bureaucracy is a powerful civic anyway, and will allow us to complete those wonders in our capital quickly. Anyway, I am considering building the Great Library in another city. But in terms of founding religions, 1 religion founded and 1 holy city captured (probably from Isabella) should be enough to serve our purposes.

NaZ, this early in the game all the AIs can only be cautious with each other. They don't share religion and are not fighting.
 
aelf said:
Krikkitone said:
I believe you Can Delete him though, so it still works as a Crippling strategy

You sure about this? I'll experiment on worldbuilder before trying it, just to be sure.

...

aelf said:
Now were we going to delete the worker, since in Warlords you can't move it the turn you captured it?

Don't leave us hanging! You obviously chose not to delete it (good choice :goodjob:), but did you check whether you would have been able to?
 
ok good to know.. was just making sure. just want to avoid that diplomatic demerit -1 you attacked our friend. personally I hate isabella shes always quick to backstab in my games. but hey if she founded a religion atleast her cities will be good for something :D

nice work on stealing that worker and killing his unit, maybe he'll sign for peace. the extra worker is going to be a huge boon to the empire, so you can work the capitols tiles while you improve city #2 and/or speed chop the oracle out the door.

region map and save??

NaZ

yes you can delete workers the turn you capture them... do it all the time in MP really ticks ppl off
 
Dr Elmer Jiggle said:

Of course I tested it on a completely new game.

NaZdReG said:
nice work on stealing that worker and killing his unit, maybe he'll sign for peace.

I didn't kill anything.

NaZdReG said:
region map and save??

Oh, yes. I forgot! Sorry. Putting those up now.
 
Ok. I understand this game is more about trying the Spiral Minaret/ Ankore University combo. Hopefully, we find some stone. Great read! :)
 
You got horses in your capitals fat-cross and not go for an early war chariot rush?! You should chop some of those trees, build a stack of 4-5 chariots and attack spain or inca while building some more. Wiping out a civ early on will give you plenty of space to expand and higher barbarian activity won't be a problem for your experienced chariots. I tried this strategy on Emperor, but on standard speed (epic is should be even easier). But maybe my advice came a bit too late, because I see you're already building a settler
 
Dr Elmer Jiggle said:
Don't leave us hanging! You obviously chose not to delete it (good choice :goodjob:), but did you check whether you would have been able to?

Sorry. Misread your question for a while and didn't get it. Yes, I checked and it could be done.

Rael said:
You got horses in your capitals fat-cross and not go for an early war chariot rush?! You should chop some of those trees, build a stack of 4-5 chariots and attack spain or inca while building some more. Wiping out a civ early on will give you plenty of space to expand and higher barbarian activity won't be a problem for your experienced chariots. I tried this strategy on Emperor, but on standard speed (epic is should be even easier). But maybe my advice came a bit too late, because I see you're already building a settler

What's wrong with putting another city down at a good spot first? And the challenge on the game is to get Sankore and Spiral Minaret, not to get the fastest win. WCs can handle either Huayna or Isabella or both later on too.
 
Well I would try for the Marble Polytheism Wonders, but wait until the CS has been popped (remember ther Are two of them)

So I'd go

Mys->Med->Priest->Writing ->Polytheism->Pottery->Masonry*->Monotheism->Alphabet->Literature->Monarchy+Paper
CoL with Oracle
CS+Theology+DR with Prophets
[Philosophy with a GS?.. although I think that needs Mathematics]

*Finish Researching this After the Prophet pops CS (if you have extra Research turns, put them into Alphabet)

I would also consider getting a 2 WCs and then starting on Stonhenge for the free Prophet points as well as the bonus Priests everywhere, you have 8 Forests, each worth 30 for Wonders (240 total), you only need 270 for SH+Oracle. And you have 2 Workers. Which means you can have those 8 chopped in 16 turns.
[Yes you losae the health but that can be restored pretty quickly with the North Peninsula City..+3 and the Pigs..+1 or a Granary..+1 Corn]

Then expand again a couple Settlers/WCs/Barracks/Granary (then ToA in the Capital after Marble is hooked up... yes the Merchants will Muddy the pool, but it also adds a Priest for a total of 5 GPP... and a Settled Merchant in the capital is rather nice what with all the high hammer tiles and the one food bonus tile)

With Marble and going religious, a Cultural Win does sound like a good possibility....I'd say probably GL in a second City (not necessarily The Second City), and a Third city for Artist Wonders (Parthenon+Sistine)

Note, I haven't done an Emperor Warlords, so I don't know how much the AI prioritizes Parthenon, but it definitely seems like you'd have a good shot at it even in a secondary City.


Also, If the terrain near it is any good a Cow Copper city might be another nice City (C or D) (you would be founding it north of them... again if the terrain is any good)
 
I like the suggested city spot. Nice job with capturing the worker. When chopping, I would chop the plains hill that you're chopping now, the silk tile, and the plains tile 2w of the capitol. The silk because you'll want to chop it no matter what, and if you chop it early, it might regrow. The plains because it has enough forests around it that it also might regrow.

I agree on going Mysticism/Meditation/Priesthood, too.
 
aelf said:
By the way, once our worker had finished with the farm, I asked him to build a road on the same tile. I know we should get the pasture up next, but the worker would waste 2 turns just getting there. I thought building a road there would benefit us in the longer run since the city would act like a roaded tile once the road was up, saving us a turn now and a turn or two later (and we will have to road the corn eventually).

i was confused.you dont save turn to go to the horse tile. since your city is NOT on a hill you can move your worker into the forest the first turn and goto the horse till the frist move the second turn and start build a pasture.

BTW,the road Does't save one turn 'cause you still need two move points to get into the forest.
 
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